A novel set in Colonial Minas Gerais, Brazil, 18th century. In Portuguese only. Everything happens in Vila Real de Nossa Senhora da Conceição do Sabará. A minor event, a Saint Joseph's statue was stolen from within a Catholic church, turns itself into a big mistery, along with a priest murder and some other strange occurrences.

"José Matias," the tale of a man of leisure who is going to his grave accompanied by a very brief procession of carriages, highlights, perhaps more than any other tale of his, the gentle irony—equal parts affection and sarcasm—that makes the work of the great nineteenth-century Portuguese writer José Maria de Eça de Queirós so delightful to the contemporary reader.
Words: 8,600